NORTON, Mass. – Four swimmers won two events each and the Wheaton College (Mass.) men's swimming & diving team won both relays in a 170-114 win over visiting Trinity College (Conn.) this afternoon at Balfour Natatorium on the Wheaton campus in Norton, Mass.
The Lyons finish their dual meet slate with a 5-5 record, while the Bantams dip to 3-5.
Prior to the start of the meet, Wheaton honored its four seniors in the last home meet of their respective careers. Eric Booth (Winslow, Maine), Aidan Carberry (Narragansett, R.I.), Braxton Farrin (Walpole, Maine) and Ben Goho (LIncoln, R.I.) were all given their due.
The Lyons were led by their underclassmen with junior Anton Lopez (Oakland, Calif.), sophomores Andrew Tran (Milton, Mass.) and Gavin Cullinan (Cumming, Ga.) and first year Kevin Rice (Vienna, Va.) all winning multiple events for the home team. Wheaton won 11 of 16 events on the day.
Lopez dominated the freestyle sprints for Wheaton with a clip of 21.55 in the 50 and a time of 48.16 in the 100 to take first in both events. Tran turned in a winning time of 55.41 in the 100-yard backstroke, while adding the 200-yard breaststroke with a time of 2:15.06. Cullinan touched the wall first in the 200-yard freestyle with a mark of 1:47.77, before taking the 200-yard backstroke with a time of 1:58.26. Rice made his mark in the distance events, winning the 1000-yard freestyle with a time of 10:17.16 in the first individual event of the day, before swimming to victory with a time of 5:00.22 in the 500-yard freestyle.
Goho closed out his time at Balfour Natatorium with a win in the 100-yard breaststroke after clocking in at 1:00.53, before a third-place effort in the 200-yard breaststroke. Sophomore Brian Hixson (Scituate, Mass.) racked up 11 points with second-place finishes in the 100 and 200-yard freestyle events and a third-place showing in the 200-yard individual medley. Farrin posted a pair of runner-up performances, finishing second in the 200-yard butterfly and the 200-yard individual medley for the Lyons.
Threes were wild with Wheaton's winning time of 3:33.33 in the 400-yard medley relay to open the meet, behind Tran's backstroke, Goho in the breaststroke, Cullinan in the butterfly and Lopez closing with the freestyle anchor. The Lyons capped the meet with a win in the 200-freestyle relay as well. Tran, Cullinan, Hixson and Lopez combined on a mark of 1:27.95.
Junior Matthew Brown (Nahant, Mass.) led Trinity with a pair of triumphs. He won the 200-yard butterfly with a time of 1:56.08, before touching the wall first in the 200-yard individual medley with a mark of 1:58.50. Junior Topher Fitzpatrick (Newton, Mass.) and sophomore Owen Schmidt (South Hamilton, Mass.) picked up points on the diving board with each trading wins and second-place efforts. Fitzpatrick tallied the top score on the one-meter board with 198.15 points, while Schmidt scored the high mark to barely edge Fitzpatrick in the three-meter event with 191.70 points. Fitzpatrick scored 190.87 points on the three-meter board and Schmidt earned 179.40 points on the one-meter board.
Senior Dillon McDermott (East Sandwich, Mass.) also contributed with 13 points for the visitors, winning the 100-yard butterfly in 53.77 after placing second in the 50-yard freestyle with a clip of 22.67.
Wheaton returns to the water on Thursday, February 22 when it heads to Cambridge, Mass. for day one of the four-day New England Women's & Men's Athletic Conference Championship, hosted by Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The Bantams host Springfield College on February 3 at 1:00 p.m.
